Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Two Girls, Two Days

It was different than any experience that I’d ever had in sports.
I mean, it’s been a little while since I’ve broken out a volleyball, but I
don’t remember all of that being part of the game. This game had kicking and hitting the ball,
whichever was necessary to get it over the net. And within the players, it
included hitting, kicking, wrestling, and biting. Thankfully, since it was my
first time, they left me out of that part. The deaf kids were glad to have me
there. We played and played. My arms were sore, but my heart was happy. Dinner
time eventually came and the headmaster sent all the kids inside but one. She
was a sweet-faced girl. Initially I had noticed that she was a bit less
confident and a bit more shy. It seemed she wasn’t sure of her ability to hit
the ball, and was a little embarrassed to try. She was the oldest girl out
there. In fact, they told me that she was a graduate of the deaf school who had
now integrated into mainstream school with a sign language translator. (As a
side note, it is nice to be able to talk about someone right in front of them,
and not be worried about if they can hear you.) I heard the headmaster brag on
her, saying that she had found her courage to come out and play, as she was
often too shy. Though she wanted to, she sometimes held back. After all the
other kids had been sent away to dinner, it was only one teacher, the
headmaster, and the two of us girls. I watched her confidence grow each time
she successfully hit the ball into the air. She wasn’t scared anymore, she was
accepted and having fun. At one point, the girl’s phone dropped to the ground
as she ran. The headmaster picked it up and said, “Everyone’s got a phone now”,
half-jokingly adding “even the deaf”. I said back to him that with texting the
whole world is wide open to communicate,
whether or not you can hear. He added, that if they were taught to read
and write, a whole other realm could be entered. “Empowerment!”- he reveled for
a moment in the victory that he got to be a part of as the leader of the deaf
school. I agreed, that it was a big victory, for each child a much wider world
of possibilities. I didn’t think any more about it. Just kept hitting the ball
back and forth til the darkness began to overtake us.

The next day I had three surgeries. The third was a girl just over
20 years of age. She was deaf and mute, and couldn’t read or write. She made some
hand motions, but she didn’t know sign language, so no one understood. When she
got excited and was really trying to make something known, she would make some
vague noises. All the history came from her caregiver. The exam was not showing
any real issues, but there had been a cyst on ultrasound. Based on the
caregiver’s persistent claim of the patient’s pain, she had been set up for
surgery. She came into the OR, obviously a bit nervous. I stayed by her side
the whole time as we prepared for the surgery, intentionally giving her a face
and hand that she could trust. The time came for the spinal to occur. I sort of
got across through hand motions that someone was about to prick her in the
back. My hands rested on her shoulder and leg, calming her, soothing her. She
made it through, but tears were streaming down her face. The anesthesia had
some issues, so we needed to test and see if she was numb. It became like
torture for her. She was already scared. She couldn’t understand why we were
pinching her. Her eyes became wild, scared, untrusting. Breathing increased.
Sweat poured off of her skin. The medicine that was supposed to make her numb
wasn’t working. Finally the anesthesia team agreed to put her to sleep, this
was too much for her. She couldn’t understand or enter our world. My heart broke
for her. The final tears dropped down her cheeks as the sleeping medicines took
effect. This magic drug took away the need to trust, the need to understand, the
need to communicate.

I thought of how different the two stories were. Both were born to
the same kind of life. But the worlds have become very different. One had
entered a world where she had gained confidence in herself little by little.
She had integrated into a normal school, she had been willing to take one step
in front of the other to slowly make her way in toward the volleyball net (even
though a white stranger was on the other side of it). The other had no way to
enter the world around her. Her value was no less, but the possibilities were
drastically inferior. All the world was filled with unknown risk; fear and
misunderstanding lurked everywhere. What set them apart now wasn’t some amazing
healing or great medical advance. It was the persistent, day to day struggle
that had occurred in a classroom, and in a deaf community. Someone had a vision
to care and to make a difference in the lives of deaf children. Each girl
represents what could have been. Different choices, different opportunities.
Now very different lives.

May we, as God’s people learn to reach into the dark worlds, the
quiet worlds, the shameful worlds. Those hauntedly isolated places where people
dwell. For me, I need to learn to speak love and truth into lives which cannot
hear. If only a hand could come along to lift someone out of a lonely place and draw them near. That
is what has been done for us. He brought us out of the pit of sinking, miry
clay. He brought us out of the sins and failures and weaknesses that were
smothering our life, and He pulled us up and drew us close. He showed us a life
of kindness, mercy, and grace. And it has made all the difference. May we look
for opportunity to do the same. May we not pass by those who need us. Those who
need Him.